THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Criticizes Knoll on Drugs Dear Sirs: Erwin Knoll's article, "Praise the Lord and Pass the Propoxyphene Hydrochloride," in the November issue calls for some critical comment....
...Evidently the Congress in 1948 became ashamed of the national purpose of our "invincibility," as it sounded too much like "Deutschland Uber Alles...
...Most Cuban visitors" may deny such teaching as long as they want...
...Does Dr...
...The second sentence in the third paragraph should read, "Burns approvingly presents Roosevelt (as FDR put it) 'waiting to be pushed into war' by Hitler...
...dose "has often been found indistinguishable from placebo," and that even in the larger 65-mg...
...Radicals Dear Sirs: There is a tendentious quality and malicious style to Georgie Anne Geyer's article in the December issue on Cuba and American young radicals that one tends to associate more with the tradition of McCarthy of Wisconsin than with the LaFol-lette of Wisconsin who founded The Progressive...
...I am interested in neither...
...What our boys did find was the Commies' scrap pile...
...Frazier T. Wollard Washington, North Carolina Errata Dear Sirs: Somehow or other a terrible printing error appeared in my review of Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom by James Mac-Gregor Burns, on Page 41 in the December issue...
...In their own writings, Miss Dohrn, Carl Davidson, and others frankly make it clear that they planned the "Days of Rage" at that meeting and were "instructed" as to how to do it...
...I don't know that radicals are not getting "indoctrination" in Cuba that they could not get at home, or in Quebec...
...According to medical experts, the analgesic of choice is aspirin...
...the second choice, for those adversely affected by aspirin, is acetaminothen (often sold under the brand name Tylenol...
...Untrue...
...Most Cuban visitors deny such teaching to any Americans...
...If this is the case—and on this point, at least, I am inclined to accept Dr...
...Knoll's statement, Or-nade is not an antihistamine, but a combination of antihistamine and decongestant...
...Since Dr...
...This reader does not terminate his support of a fine and constructive monthly for a single offense—even one so distressingly helpful to the Spiro Agnew view of America's youth—but one longs for the good old days when one could cancel a subscription to tell an editor off...
...We are told that the South Vietnamese army is taking up the slack as the American boys leave...
...He said the South Vietnamese will fight only if their lives depend on it...
...The "former Cuban official" is only one of several I know personally who were top Castro men...
...But Georgie Anne Geyer, ringing the changes upon Cuba as a center of "indoctrination" for radicals, is not very credible in her article, "Cuba's Contribution to the American Radical Movement...
...My son spent eleven months at the front, as do all the boys now...
...She states, "There are some direct correlations between trips to Cuba and meetings in Cuba and violence in the United States...
...Link maintains, that there is still "sometimes reason for prescribing Darvon...
...As our boys did practically no fighting in Cambodia, the 9,000-plus enemy killed there is also a fairy tale, as are nearly all the enemy casualty figures we receive...
...They have constantly said the contrary...
...Nowhere does my article say that the Cubans "masterminded" the violent approach of the Weathermen, though the fact that there is "some direct correlation" should be clear to any thinking person...
...Georgie Anne Geyer Chicago, Illinois Rewriting the Pledge Dear Sirs: What you omitted in your editorial comments in the January issue about the "pledge of allegiance" is that the pledge as originally written is not the pledge the children parrot each day at school...
...Our boys are simply staying at the front longer...
...The radical movement dates to the early 1960s and needed only domestic racism and U.S...
...Howard N. Meyer Rockville Centre, New York Dear Sirs: I have several times been warned about "liberals" and "liberal" publications...
...The NRC panel found that Ornade is beneficial in the treatment of allergic rhinitis, but not in upper respiratory infections for which it is commonly prescribed by many physicians, including, I assume, Dr...
...These arms were abandoned because they were so worn-out and obsolete as to be worthless...
...I can see nothing in the article —with its obvious criticisms of American policy toward Cuba and its spirit of understanding of radical aims—that would "delight" any Batistianos...
...So there is sometimes reason for prescribing Darvon and it may, at times, be a good thing that cost alone does not determine the prescription...
...I am intrigued by Dr...
...Link have evidence that "Darvon compound" (Darvon plus APC) is more effective than APC alone...
...There is much constructive that could be said about American medicine and doctors' prescribing habits, but Mr...
...You should at least apologize...
...This is not to say that busing is not desired, but to state that the Coleman Report has a more important function than that indicated by your editorial...
...Erwin Knoll Washington, D.C...
...My son said that he talked to many South Vietnamese and that they want nothing from us but to get out of there and leave them alone...
...The conclusion of the report was that, without any doubt, the educational success of a student depended more upon his family background than on the other areas considered...
...I wondered if I could be wrong, since today's children say "one nation indivisible...
...the third choice is codeine...
...unit to enter Cambodia...
...I recently located the pledge, "one nation invincible...
...Her article is nothing less than slander on a young socialist country, where great strides for human progress in this hemisphere have been made...
...But I am not wrong...
...John Yorker Cape Porpoise, Maine 'Odium by Association' Dear Sirs: A recent editorial in The Progressive includes a disgusting manifestation of attempted "odium by association" in its equating of Professor Sidney Hook with the publicity-grabbing J. Edgar Hoover, apparently on the grounds that both object —each for his own reasons—to the dynamiting of university buildings and the taking over of the institution by the forces of yahoodom masquerading as "youthful idealists...
...If Mr...
...The deceit of this Administration is disgraceful...
...The prescription habits of many doctors are influenced by the demands of their patients, sometimes to the patient's detriment...
...He considers the Vietnamization program a fraud...
...in fact, one of the chief uses of Darvon alone is for patients who cannot take aspirin because of ulcers or bleeding tendencies...
...the classmates of the child in question...
...This is especially true with reasoning such as, "just after X went to Cuba, he blew up this or that...
...My son brought home an example, a worn-out 1940 model single-shot rifle...
...Further, although Darvon is much more costly than aspirin, it is very questionable that it is more dangerous...
...Had all the valuable war supplies been a reality as itemized by Mr...
...Young radicals in this country (and in Cuba as well) believe change in many Latin American countries must come by violence, but that peaceful change to socialism in the United States is the only way as long as parliamentary and mass action techniques are tolerated by our Government...
...Link's claim that Ornade affords "some minor symptomatic relief" of common colds is directly contradicted by the scientists of the National Research Council, who cite "several carefully controlled studies" to the effect that Ornade and similar compounds provide "no alleviation of symptoms or shortening of the duration of symptoms of colds...
...Link's quarrel is not so much with me as with his own professional colleagues whose research and conclusions were cited in my article—contributors to The Medical Letter and the Journal of the American Medical Association, the distinguished scientists who served on the drug evaluation panels of the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council, and the medical authorities who testified before the Senate Monopoly Subcommittee during its hearings on Government drug procurement practices...
...Knoll did not pursue further his promising opening theme of our excessively pill-oriented culture and the role of drug manufacturers in fostering this...
...My son says that the casualty figures are a standing joke with the boys...
...Among other fantastic allegations she claims, "Cuba has been the greatest single influence on the American radical movement today," and that Mark Rudd "found" himself in Cuba just before he led the Columbia University riots—the real kick-off of the modern radical movement...
...I am age fifty and recall the daily parroting of the pledge in grade school...
...The will to fight is not there...
...Knoll has written an ignorant polemic which will only serve to widen the gap between patients and their doctors...
...What would be surprising would be if the Cubans did not have such a program...
...It may be, as Dr...
...The danger of Miss Geyer's approach is that others, without her delicate touch, can use her stuff to argue that we ought to close Castro down...
...Contrary to Mr...
...These are: the school building and administration...
...The huge stores of rice we were supposed to have captured were so badly spoiled that they could find none fit to feed to starving Cambodians...
...the teachers...
...and the individual family background of the child...
...Nixon, they most certainly would have been well guarded...
...Editorials and articles of this character may convince me that I shall have to look elsewhere for such a viewpoint—probably to Dissent—and regard The Progressive as a sort of leftish equivalent to The National Review...
...Barton J. Bernstein Center for Advanced Study University of Illinois Urbana, Illinois The Coleman Report Dear Sirs: In reference to your editorial "School Integration Works" in the December issue, I question your statement that the Coleman Report found "integration into majority white schools" the most important "school factor" in improving the educational performance of blacks...
...Ornade is typical of the many "cold tablets" that do afford some minor symptomatic relief for the patient with a common cold...
...Keams—his is a cry of anger that the Cubans could even be suspected of such a thing...
...The reaction of the critics, some of whose letters you publish, is a disappointing indication that too many American progressives today want truth only when it serves their cause and have forgotten that old progressive dictum that the truth shall set you free...
...This would deprive our radicals of a favorite R and R sppt, more or less free of the CIA, but also raises ghosts of the Bay of Pigs and Cuban missile crisis...
...Robert L. Kealy Oconomowoc, Wisconsin Dear Sirs: The article by Georgie Anne Geyer on Cuba in your December issue is a disgrace to a progressive magazine...
...She states that some 4,000 young Americans have been to Cuba yet quotes only two of these (Allan Young and Robert Williams) as personally interviewed...
...My article is neither a slander of nor a paean to Cuba...
...Kent Link, M.D...
...My son was attached to the first U.S...
...Kearns believes that young radicals here (and in Cuba) believe that peaceful change is the only way here, he has not been reading the literature of the Weathermen, the Black Panthers, and all the myriad little groups like Rising Up Angry...
...Such evidence is missing from the medical literature...
...Several other radicals are quoted out of context from their writings or interviews...
...I am interested in telling a totally unexplored story...
...To state that the Coleman Report favors integration as the most important "school factor" is to misrepresent the main function of the report which was to show clearly that the home life, and not the hours spent in school, is the most important criterion when one is evaluating "the educational performance of black children...
...Because I have much respect for The Progressive, it is disappointing to see an article with major errors and omissions, particularly when these would have been picked up by elementary research...
...I suspect the one "former Cuban official" giving her inside information was a former Batista-ist since the tenor of her article would delight any "former Cuban official...
...Formerly they put in about eight months in the field and the rest of their stay in the rear...
...imperialism to spur it...
...Other dangerous implications of her article are those blaming Cuba for masterminding the violent approach of the Weathermen and other anarchists in this country...
...I guess you are fulfilling the prophecy made to me...
...This is not surprising when one considers that they have a choice of Communist control or rule by the Nixon-supported Thieu gangsters...
...After being a staunch supporter of The Progressive for a number of years, I see an exceedingly reactionary article, "Cuba's Contribution to the American Radical Movement," by Georgie Anne Geyer take the feature spot in the magazine...
...The National Research Council's investigators found, as my article noted, that Darvon in the widely prescribed 32-mg...
...Link's judgment—then perhaps a case can be made for widening "the gap between patients and their doctors...
...Kenneth W. Porter Department of History University of Oregon Eugene, Oregon...
...If there is a chance to run, they will run instead of fight...
...I wonder if you believe there would not be as much of a radical movement here if Cuba didn't exist...
...Indeed, most of them proudly proclaimed their commitment and debt to Castro's Cuba...
...The Coleman Report states that there are four segments of education to be evaluated when one discusses "equality of educational opportunity...
...Oyster Bay, New York Knoll Replies Dear Sirs: It seems to me that Dr...
...They expected to meet stiff resistance but encountered hardly any...
...Decongestants are the major available group of drugs to control the symptoms of a cold and the antihistamine acts as a mild sedative to prevent the jitteriness that the decongestants may cause...
...I remember saying "one nation invincible...
...W. Kearns Woodland Hills, California Miss Geyer Replies Dear Sirs: In the preparation of my report on the impact of Castro's Cuba on the radical movement in the United States I interviewed twenty American radicals...
...He said if the patrol leader reported ten enemy seen, the report would come out ten enemy killed...
...Link offers no scientific testimony to support his assertions, I must leave it to readers to judge which of us has written "an ignorant polemic...
...However, since I abhor the I-disagree-with - something - you-have-published-so-can-cel-my-subscription approach, I am also enclosing a check for a three-year renewal...
...This material is blatantly slated for unthinking conservatives...
...Perhaps she should have listened to many of the young leftists who have spoken openly of their Cuban experiences, and have not suggested anything resembling Miss Geyer's charges...
...in a 1913 volume...
...I doubt if Miss Geyer, or the FBI, knows either...
...Miss Geyer seems to have a lot of information no one else seems to have been able to get...
...The fact that I have given camp names, dates, places, the Cuban approach, and the like seems to be of no interest to Mr...
...Every one of them unabashedly agreed that Cuba is the greatest single influence on the American radical movement...
...radicals because he has defied the colossus of the North...
...It is unfortunate that Mr...
...dose it is "not always" more effective than administration of a dummy pill...
...Deceit on Vietnam Dear Sirs: My son recently returned from Vietnam...
...the fact is it is a very important program under the Department for Export of the Revolution in Cuba...
...The more I think of them, the paler I turn...
...Link's comment that "the prescription habits of many doctors are influenced by the demand of their patients, sometimes to the patient's detriment...
...Arnold Kern Wadena, Minnesota Castro and U.S...
...George J. Cooper Daly City, California Dear Sirs: No doubt Cuba under Castro, just by being there, has an exhilarating effect on U.S...
...While propoxyphene hydrochloride is, in fact, probably no more effective than codeine or aspirin, it is most commonly prescribed as "Darvon compound" which contains Darvon and aspirin and phenace-tin, the combination of which generally is more effective than only aspirin...
...I have for many years subscribed to The Progressive in the belief that it was the publication which best presented a view of public affairs which was at once liberal-progressive-radical and sane, well-balanced, and responsible...
...For only one example, take the meeting of Bernardine Dohrn and the other Weathermen with the North Vietnamese in Havana...
...But Darvon, as my article pointed out, is the most frequently prescribed drug in the United States...
...Link...
Vol. 35 • February 1971 • No. 2
